KDE 4 RC1 Launched On Schedule

The KDE project has just published the first Version 4 Release Candidate of the free desktop environment.

The Release Candidate can be installed on OpenSuse or Kubuntu systems; the source code is also available for building on other systems.

In its press release the KDE team writes that almost all components are release quality, although work is still in progress on Plasma, the future connection between a terminal emulation and a starter panel. This component will be completed in time for the Final Release in December, says the team.

The KDE team is calling on anyone interested in doing so to test KDE 4. Two Live CDs are available for a fast and uncomplicated trial: the Opensuse KDE 4 Live CD, and the Debian KDE 4 Beta 4 Live CD, both of which are available as downloads. Both are continually updated to reflect the KDE 4 state of art. Users can report bugs via the bugtracking system. Parallel to RC1 the developers have completed the final KDE 4 developer environment, which is now available in the "stable" branch of the KDE repository.

The smallest kernel, put together thanks to a collection of patches by the Linux-tiny project, weighs in at just 197KB. After two years of inactivity, maintainers Michael Opdenacker and other developers are looking to breath new life into the project.